Time for an update, Robert Stack style:
- My new computer is en route to Kofu as I write this, and will be here later this week. I got a good deal on a Toshiba laptop off of New Egg, with a warranty and free shipping to boot (sadly this offer was only good within the continental US, so my ever-gracious parents are forwarding it to me). It seemed to have decent enough specifications; though honestly I`m so far out of the loop technologically that the numbers all seemed egregiously high to me. My internet is being installed on the 8th, so in less than two weeks I`ll say goodbye to free internet cafe soft cream and return to the world of easy communication.
- After fifteen months at Kriasho Kofu, my coworker Eileen is going back to America amid a flood of tearful goodbyes from students. She`s given me a lot of good advice, especially during those first few weeks when I didn`t know a hanko from a drill card, and I am eternally grateful for that. I wish her the best of luck in her travels and future career goals, and freely acknowledge that I have some big shoes to fill.
- After six weeks of listening to the same eleven CDs over and over, I finally got my packet of Mixes from the CD Swap! There's a treasure trove of new music inside, and seeing the individual effort that friends and strangers had put into each design was a welcome breath of creativity amidst the stagnant Japanese business environment in which I work. Good God I can`t wait to listen to them all.
- I saw a yakuza on the train heading out of Shinjuku! He was dressed in all black, with long hair and an elaborate tatto running up his neck on to the right half of his face. He spent most of the ride sending text messages on his iPhone.
- After a half-hour late-night struggle to work the ticket machine at Lawson`s alongside an equally clueless clerk, I now possess two tickets to the Tokyo leg of the Rent tour! Since I am unable to accurately express my excitement in mere words, I shall leave it to the reader to imagine my frantic anticipation.
- One last anecdote: on Thursdays I teach a middle-school class of two girls who spent time in America and speak better English than most adults. Since there is no place for them in the Kriasho curriculum, we use a third-party textbook and do lots of other activities. During a particularly intense game of Picnic (˝I am going on a picnic and I am bringing apples, bananas, a cat...˝) one of the students hesitated when she was unlucky enough to get stuck with Q. She thought for a while, and, still a little unsure as to the game`s flexibility, asked: ˝Is it okay to go on a picnic with Queen?˝ (Japanese speakers often struggle with articles.) Aside from this phrase`s obvious awesomeness as a cover-band name, I would have to say that a picnic with Queen would probably be the greatest thing ever. Period.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Comatose
After five and a half years of mostly-loyal service, two hard-drive replacement surgeries, one crippling CD-Drive disaster, a Root Beer/keyboard mishap, and countless software malfunctions, my Dell Inspiron 5150 has been officially declared comatose by the one English-speaking member of Dell`s Japanese tech support center. The diagnosis is either a bad graphics card or a motherboard problem; and either way it`s not worth fixing.
Funny, it feels like I`m betraying an old friend by saying that. That computer outlasted every car I`ve ever owned, got me through a half-dozen all-nighters, carried my senior thesis, and was the center of many groundbreaking ideas (or at least ones that seemed groundbreaking at the time). But we live in a consumer throw-away society, and computers (like our cars, cell phones, VCRs, DVD players, sneakers, glasses, stereo systems, and MP3 players) are designed to last until the newer models come out, then get thrown away in favor of a more expensive purchase. Affordable repairmen are a relic of the past...God help me, I`m waxing sentimental drivel again. Can`t have that, now, can we?
There`s been a lot of loss surrounding so many of our lives lately, and the thing to do is forge on bravely against the darkness, for perhaps it is our destiny for everything we ever cared about to grow old, break down, outlive its usefulness, and get left behind.
Or maybe just everything I ever cared about.
Funny, it feels like I`m betraying an old friend by saying that. That computer outlasted every car I`ve ever owned, got me through a half-dozen all-nighters, carried my senior thesis, and was the center of many groundbreaking ideas (or at least ones that seemed groundbreaking at the time). But we live in a consumer throw-away society, and computers (like our cars, cell phones, VCRs, DVD players, sneakers, glasses, stereo systems, and MP3 players) are designed to last until the newer models come out, then get thrown away in favor of a more expensive purchase. Affordable repairmen are a relic of the past...God help me, I`m waxing sentimental drivel again. Can`t have that, now, can we?
There`s been a lot of loss surrounding so many of our lives lately, and the thing to do is forge on bravely against the darkness, for perhaps it is our destiny for everything we ever cared about to grow old, break down, outlive its usefulness, and get left behind.
Or maybe just everything I ever cared about.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Internet Cafe
I am writing this from an Internet Cafe in Yokohama where Tom and I are crashing for the night for the low price of 1480 yen (about fifteen dollars), plus 100 yen for a shower. The cubicle (for it can only be considered as such) measures about five feet by two and a half feet, and has an open ceiling. The floor is a hard cushion-type substance made for sitting or sleeping (there is no chair); and our purchase includes two small bean-bag pillows; access to the coffee and soda bar (the soft-serve ice cream bar is sadly closed); and free range of the manga library downstairs, which prominantly features schoolgirls displaying ample cleavage. It is peaceful here with soft jazz playing the background, and is an altogether pleasant place to crash for the night.
My computer recently decided it would be fun to only display verticle lines of color when I start it up, and this combined with the lack of internet at my new apartment (which has three windows, two stovetop burners, and nice hardwood floors) has not ben conducive to my updating this blog, or staying in contact with friends, all of whom I miss terribly. This could be the quite timely end of my long-suffering Dell laptop, but I am doing everything in my power to fix the problem if I can. Until then, the best way to contact me is via my cell phone e-mail. I find sending text messages to be unbearably araduous, but I can usually manage something that bears resemblance to a dignified reply.
That`s all for now; I need sleep. More adventures will hopefully follow later; not all of them good.
My computer recently decided it would be fun to only display verticle lines of color when I start it up, and this combined with the lack of internet at my new apartment (which has three windows, two stovetop burners, and nice hardwood floors) has not ben conducive to my updating this blog, or staying in contact with friends, all of whom I miss terribly. This could be the quite timely end of my long-suffering Dell laptop, but I am doing everything in my power to fix the problem if I can. Until then, the best way to contact me is via my cell phone e-mail. I find sending text messages to be unbearably araduous, but I can usually manage something that bears resemblance to a dignified reply.
That`s all for now; I need sleep. More adventures will hopefully follow later; not all of them good.
Friday, April 3, 2009
For Steven
Steven Bach used to start each Monday screenwriting class by asking us what movies we’d seen over the weekend. He’d go around the table asking everyone, no matter how much work he’d assigned for that day; and sometimes one response would provoke him into a story about the film in question or someone he knew in the movie business that would hold us all in silent attention until that final denouement when he’d break the silence with: “So Harry, what’d you see?” Always the showman, when Steven spoke the subject matter always came alive. Whether he was describing Romeo and Juliet as a play “about two fourteen your old kids who do it,” ruminating on Moses’ speech impediment, or defending the college’s educational philosophies (“You kids don’t realize that most other places are just glorified community colleges compared to Bennington”); we listened.
But it was always the world of old Hollywood that he created most vividly as his passion added a zany realism to a subject that in the wrong hands could become little more than a sequence of names, dates, and deteriorating celluloid. You could almost hear David O Selznick fast-talking his way to the top and see D.W. Griffith peeking down the blouses of the underage girls on set. That was his world, and to sit in a Steven Bach class or to read even a single page of one of his books was to lose yourself in that magic. He knew full well that world was foreign to us and was always asking us questions to probe the extent of the generation gap (“Do you kids know Rita Hayworth?”). Modern Hollywood blockbusters seemed to fill him with confusion and disgust—like when he’d fumblingly refer to The Matrix Overloaded or The Matrix Overboard—though behind those misnomers lay a wisdom about the workings of Hollywood I still don’t understand after six terms of classes and 400 pages of Final Cut.
He spent most days in class tearing into our mistakes and pushing us to create work that could compare to William Goldman’s lyrical terseness or Bud Schulberg’s brutal power. I got that crazy feeling that maybe he really believed in us; and perhaps that’s why I was always trying to impress him and consequently was always so devastated by the poorly-planned scripts riddled with sentimentally clichéd ideas that I’d inevitably turn in. Bennington was a world of impossibly lofty standards for me that all-too often left me ashamed of my work or too embarrassed to even try developing it. But after four years of discouragement, I’ll never forget our Senior Dinner when Steven came up to me in that flamboyant orange ruffled shirt he reserved for social affairs to shake my hand and tell me how much he enjoyed the story I’d presented at the Senior Literature Reading because it had just been so funny. This was a story that had been subsequently rejected by the Interrobang (“Doesn’t fit the style of our publication”) and Silo (“We encourage you to submit again next year”). I had no idea how to respond. A man who had greenlit Woody Allen scripts, shared dinner with Orson Welles, whose vividly intense prose lingered long after I’d moved on, and who I admired more than any other person I’d ever known, liked my writing. I remember being flustered, humbled, surprised, and thanking him in that stuttering manner I adopt in awkward social situations. And that was the last conversation we ever had.
I still don’t know what to make of all that. One of the very few writers who presented his world to me and helped me believe that my dreams were actually within striking distance is gone. I’ll miss you, Steven.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This entry was very difficult for me to write, and though I'd love to record every memory I have of Steven Bach and what he meant to me and all of us at Bennington, I lack the skill or energy necessary for the task. Randall, however, has prepared a wonderfully honest series of essays in his blog, which I encourage you to visit.
But it was always the world of old Hollywood that he created most vividly as his passion added a zany realism to a subject that in the wrong hands could become little more than a sequence of names, dates, and deteriorating celluloid. You could almost hear David O Selznick fast-talking his way to the top and see D.W. Griffith peeking down the blouses of the underage girls on set. That was his world, and to sit in a Steven Bach class or to read even a single page of one of his books was to lose yourself in that magic. He knew full well that world was foreign to us and was always asking us questions to probe the extent of the generation gap (“Do you kids know Rita Hayworth?”). Modern Hollywood blockbusters seemed to fill him with confusion and disgust—like when he’d fumblingly refer to The Matrix Overloaded or The Matrix Overboard—though behind those misnomers lay a wisdom about the workings of Hollywood I still don’t understand after six terms of classes and 400 pages of Final Cut.
He spent most days in class tearing into our mistakes and pushing us to create work that could compare to William Goldman’s lyrical terseness or Bud Schulberg’s brutal power. I got that crazy feeling that maybe he really believed in us; and perhaps that’s why I was always trying to impress him and consequently was always so devastated by the poorly-planned scripts riddled with sentimentally clichéd ideas that I’d inevitably turn in. Bennington was a world of impossibly lofty standards for me that all-too often left me ashamed of my work or too embarrassed to even try developing it. But after four years of discouragement, I’ll never forget our Senior Dinner when Steven came up to me in that flamboyant orange ruffled shirt he reserved for social affairs to shake my hand and tell me how much he enjoyed the story I’d presented at the Senior Literature Reading because it had just been so funny. This was a story that had been subsequently rejected by the Interrobang (“Doesn’t fit the style of our publication”) and Silo (“We encourage you to submit again next year”). I had no idea how to respond. A man who had greenlit Woody Allen scripts, shared dinner with Orson Welles, whose vividly intense prose lingered long after I’d moved on, and who I admired more than any other person I’d ever known, liked my writing. I remember being flustered, humbled, surprised, and thanking him in that stuttering manner I adopt in awkward social situations. And that was the last conversation we ever had.
I still don’t know what to make of all that. One of the very few writers who presented his world to me and helped me believe that my dreams were actually within striking distance is gone. I’ll miss you, Steven.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This entry was very difficult for me to write, and though I'd love to record every memory I have of Steven Bach and what he meant to me and all of us at Bennington, I lack the skill or energy necessary for the task. Randall, however, has prepared a wonderfully honest series of essays in his blog, which I encourage you to visit.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Life in Japan #3: The Blundering Gaijin
The first thing I did after moving into my apartment was ruin a perfectly good roll of toilet paper. After using the bathroom for the first time, I rested a new roll on top of the tank beneath a conspicuous-looking faucet that turned on automatically when I flushed, soaking the roll beyond any comfortable use.
My toilet, which the Japanese usually keep separate from their bathing facilities for sanitary reasons. The faucet on top is actually a convenient way to quickly rinse your hands after answering nature’s call without having to run over to the adjacent bathroom.
Japan is filled with things like this that don’t function the way I’m accustomed, and thus turn even the most routine tasks into elaborate adventures. Is that slot on the subway ticket machine for inserting coins or for dumping out change? I had to push a button to open the door to the restaurant, but will it close again automatically? Where does the fabric softener go in my washing machine? Is this really flour I’m buying? And how the hell do I work this fucking rice cooker?
The rice cooker has only has three buttons, but it took nearly a week of delayed meals before I figured out how to use it properly. “It’s easy,” no fewer than three separate individuals told me while glorifying the advent of this labor-saving device. “All you do is press the button and wait a few minutes!”
The problem was that no one told me which of the three buttons to press. On my first attempt I mashed all of them at rotating intervals until it seemed like something began to happen inside, though after an hour I began to suspect that I had made a mistake. Or was it supposed to take this long? (No one had mentioned a specific cooking time.) My second and third attempts consisted of me trying different buttons, waiting a few minutes, then worrying that I’d pressed the wrong one and trying another. I got the rice to cook once but immediately forgot which button I’d pressed, and the next night I had to repeat the entire guessing process. After this I was a lot more careful about writing down the procedures for everything from the ATM to the water heater.
My apartment’s kitchenette. Note the damp roll of toilet paper next to the coffee mug.
Every day I face new challenges fueled by my cultural ineptitude and my inability to speak the language—challenges that are merely routine for the millions of Japanese who live here. Since nothing makes me feel more awkward than having my failures out in full view of a judgmental world, it’s no wonder I feel like the blundering gaijin who can’t do anything right.
Other shameful adventures experienced by yours truly include:
- In which Ian accidentally opens the package containing Katie’s old futon that he finds outside his new apartment, then has to converse with the Japanese delivery man who comes to take it away.
- In which Ian variably wakes up in cold or hot sweats because he’s accidentally pressed the Auto Timer button on his AC unit.
- In which Ian goes to wildly elaborate lengths to avoid being the only one in the teacher’s room in case the phone rings and he has to answer it in poorly pronounced Japanese
- In which Ian attempts to purchase a ten year-old Soul Flower Union CD at a J-POP record store.
- In which Ian goes out to eat with his foreign co-worker; and after forty-five minutes of not getting his fried rice, isn’t sure whether the waiter forgot the order or the food just isn’t coming.
These things happen so often that I don’t even notice them anymore, and I’ve gotten used to making elaborate preparations for tasks as simple as mailing a letter or ordering the aforementioned Soul Flower Union CD from Amazon. But for all my complaints, figuring out how to function here on even the simplest of terms gives me a wonderful sense of satisfaction that was far more difficult to come by at home.
My toilet, which the Japanese usually keep separate from their bathing facilities for sanitary reasons. The faucet on top is actually a convenient way to quickly rinse your hands after answering nature’s call without having to run over to the adjacent bathroom.
Japan is filled with things like this that don’t function the way I’m accustomed, and thus turn even the most routine tasks into elaborate adventures. Is that slot on the subway ticket machine for inserting coins or for dumping out change? I had to push a button to open the door to the restaurant, but will it close again automatically? Where does the fabric softener go in my washing machine? Is this really flour I’m buying? And how the hell do I work this fucking rice cooker?
The rice cooker has only has three buttons, but it took nearly a week of delayed meals before I figured out how to use it properly. “It’s easy,” no fewer than three separate individuals told me while glorifying the advent of this labor-saving device. “All you do is press the button and wait a few minutes!”
The problem was that no one told me which of the three buttons to press. On my first attempt I mashed all of them at rotating intervals until it seemed like something began to happen inside, though after an hour I began to suspect that I had made a mistake. Or was it supposed to take this long? (No one had mentioned a specific cooking time.) My second and third attempts consisted of me trying different buttons, waiting a few minutes, then worrying that I’d pressed the wrong one and trying another. I got the rice to cook once but immediately forgot which button I’d pressed, and the next night I had to repeat the entire guessing process. After this I was a lot more careful about writing down the procedures for everything from the ATM to the water heater.
My apartment’s kitchenette. Note the damp roll of toilet paper next to the coffee mug.
Every day I face new challenges fueled by my cultural ineptitude and my inability to speak the language—challenges that are merely routine for the millions of Japanese who live here. Since nothing makes me feel more awkward than having my failures out in full view of a judgmental world, it’s no wonder I feel like the blundering gaijin who can’t do anything right.
Other shameful adventures experienced by yours truly include:
- In which Ian accidentally opens the package containing Katie’s old futon that he finds outside his new apartment, then has to converse with the Japanese delivery man who comes to take it away.
- In which Ian variably wakes up in cold or hot sweats because he’s accidentally pressed the Auto Timer button on his AC unit.
- In which Ian goes to wildly elaborate lengths to avoid being the only one in the teacher’s room in case the phone rings and he has to answer it in poorly pronounced Japanese
- In which Ian attempts to purchase a ten year-old Soul Flower Union CD at a J-POP record store.
- In which Ian goes out to eat with his foreign co-worker; and after forty-five minutes of not getting his fried rice, isn’t sure whether the waiter forgot the order or the food just isn’t coming.
These things happen so often that I don’t even notice them anymore, and I’ve gotten used to making elaborate preparations for tasks as simple as mailing a letter or ordering the aforementioned Soul Flower Union CD from Amazon. But for all my complaints, figuring out how to function here on even the simplest of terms gives me a wonderful sense of satisfaction that was far more difficult to come by at home.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A Saint Patrick's Day Celebration
Inside the teacher's room at Kriasho Kofu at the end of the workday.
Eileen: You're Irish, right?
Me: Yeah, mostly.
Eileen: Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
Me: Is that today? I thought it was the fourteenth. I've been busy trying to learn my Japanese holidays.
Eileen: No, it's the seventeenth. They're having a big celebration at The Vault if you're interested.
Me: Nah, not on a worknight. Besides, I'm not that Irish.
Eileen: But you're wearing green today.
Me (glancing down and realizing that I am indeed wearing a green tie): Oh, so I am. I didn't even realize.
Eileen: Maybe it was subconscious.
Me (shrugs): Maybe.
So, in the spirit of this spring holiday season, I'd like to wish you all a Happy Vernal Equinox Day! I'll enjoy a paid day off far more than a night packed into a bar filled with overpriced Guinness and people in sideways Irish caps.
Eileen: You're Irish, right?
Me: Yeah, mostly.
Eileen: Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
Me: Is that today? I thought it was the fourteenth. I've been busy trying to learn my Japanese holidays.
Eileen: No, it's the seventeenth. They're having a big celebration at The Vault if you're interested.
Me: Nah, not on a worknight. Besides, I'm not that Irish.
Eileen: But you're wearing green today.
Me (glancing down and realizing that I am indeed wearing a green tie): Oh, so I am. I didn't even realize.
Eileen: Maybe it was subconscious.
Me (shrugs): Maybe.
So, in the spirit of this spring holiday season, I'd like to wish you all a Happy Vernal Equinox Day! I'll enjoy a paid day off far more than a night packed into a bar filled with overpriced Guinness and people in sideways Irish caps.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Consumer Culture
I found my copy of Andrew Hurley’s Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks at the town dump last October and almost listed it for sale on Amazon for five dollars before deciding that it might be worth keeping. Last week when I finally got around to reading it, I did not regret my decision.
Hurley traces these three American institutions from their origins as working-class benchmarks tied to inner-city immigration to their explosions into the new middle-class consumer market after World War II; where they epitomized America’s newfound obsessions with family values, excessive spending, and a mass migration to suburbia. American diners at the turn of the century, for instance, mostly operated in factory districts and were places where working men could get away from their wives over a cheap meal and a cup of coffee. By the 1950’s, diners were rapidly opening in the new suburbia where they catered to busy homemakers who craved a break from their meal preparation duties. The bowling alley and the trailer park experienced similar makeovers before they too were left behind in a changing consumer market. What I enjoyed most about this book was Hurley’s examples of just how many traditional American values were shaped by companies out to capture the massive amounts of money flowing through the middle-class in the ‘50s. Own your own home, buy your wife a new washing machine, join a bowling league: be an American.
The book is fairly easy reading (while never crossing into dense social science dissertation territory), and the subject matter is close enough to home that most readers should have no trouble getting through it. The pace drags at times when Hurley succumbs to the researcher’s temptation to insert every last oddball, offbeat, or even remotely interesting tidbit of information into his book (a vice I noticed because I fall victim to it quite often), but the overarching theme makes it worth getting through these sections.
I highly recommend this book if you can find a copy in your library, or decide to purchase one on Amazon for five dollars.
Hurley traces these three American institutions from their origins as working-class benchmarks tied to inner-city immigration to their explosions into the new middle-class consumer market after World War II; where they epitomized America’s newfound obsessions with family values, excessive spending, and a mass migration to suburbia. American diners at the turn of the century, for instance, mostly operated in factory districts and were places where working men could get away from their wives over a cheap meal and a cup of coffee. By the 1950’s, diners were rapidly opening in the new suburbia where they catered to busy homemakers who craved a break from their meal preparation duties. The bowling alley and the trailer park experienced similar makeovers before they too were left behind in a changing consumer market. What I enjoyed most about this book was Hurley’s examples of just how many traditional American values were shaped by companies out to capture the massive amounts of money flowing through the middle-class in the ‘50s. Own your own home, buy your wife a new washing machine, join a bowling league: be an American.
The book is fairly easy reading (while never crossing into dense social science dissertation territory), and the subject matter is close enough to home that most readers should have no trouble getting through it. The pace drags at times when Hurley succumbs to the researcher’s temptation to insert every last oddball, offbeat, or even remotely interesting tidbit of information into his book (a vice I noticed because I fall victim to it quite often), but the overarching theme makes it worth getting through these sections.
I highly recommend this book if you can find a copy in your library, or decide to purchase one on Amazon for five dollars.
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